Mom

She loved the exultant freedom of birds

Soaring, dipping, diving, gliding, exciting.

At a county fair, she spied a pair of parrots.

Bought them, brought them home and taught

Them to sing. Anguished at keeping them caged,

One day in spring, without a word to the birds,

She opened the little gate to their cage

And sobbing, watched them fly away. Seventy

Years later at 92 she had taken up painting

And presented me with a pair of parrots

Flying away. She didn’t have to say a word,

It was all there making me aware that her long

Long life had not eroded her love for flying free.